Panel door joint and method of construction



'March 4, 1958 O E. B. SIMMONS 2,825,099

PANEL DOOR JOINT AND METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION Filed Oct. 19, 1954 IN VEN TOR. Eawneo B. .fi mal f AT foe/vs v5 r r 2,825,099 I Ice Patented Mar. 4', 1958 PANEL DOOR JOINT AND METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION This invention relates to improvements in panelled joiner work. In panelled joiner work, particularly the manufacture of panelled doors, rails, stiles and muntins have been provided with joints shaped so that the sides or ends of the members are provided with dowels or with tongue and groove connections. The particular joint which is suited to this invention is a tongue and groove joint which permits manufacture of the various components of the door in standardized sizes which may be kept in inventory in readiness to fill orders either standard or special; at the same time providing for economy as to the required area of panel material.

The object of the invention is to facilitate the manufacture of panelled doors and other joiner work, to provide a strong and improved tongue and groove joint, to force the assembler of the component parts to use the materials in the most advantageous manner for accuracy and appearance, and to reduce the number of component parts required for a complete panelled product.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is an elevation of a multi-panelled door such as a garage door; portions of the front face of the rails and muntins being broken away to exhibit the joiner construction.

Fig. 2 is an exploded assembly view in perspective showing the parts of a section of a sectionalized panel door.

Fig. 3 is a perspective of a lower left hand corner of a panel door made in accord with this invention, a portion I of the lower rail and a portion of adjacent panel being broken away to show the assembled relationship of panel and rail.

The drawings show the incorporation of the invention in a sectionalized door for garage door purposes. The lowermost section 10 terminates along an upper margin 11 and extends as a unit across the bottom of the door. Immediately above the section 10 is a similar section 12, the upper margin of which is shown at 13. Additional sections 14 may be joined successively to fabricate a door of the required size and along the lines of separation at 1113 hinges may be provided for in a manner well known in this art, but which need not been shown here, since the invention may be incorporated in sectionalized doors or in one piece doors.

Fundamentally, the construction of the joiner work in accord with this invention calls for a lower rail 15, stiles as exemplified at 16 and top rail 17. There are as many mullions 18 as are needed to demark the required number of panel areas to be occupied, by panels 19.

An important feature of the invention is the tongue and groove construction which, as to the rails 15 and 17, includes a continuous routed channel 20. having one straight wall 21 at one side thereof and an opposite wall 22 stepped at 23. There is thus provided a groove for the substantially complementary tenon 24 of the stiles and mullions which has one straight wall 25 and one stepped wall 26. When the tongue or tenon 24 is properly glued in position as shown in Figure 3, a decidedly strong tongue and groove connection between rail and stile or between rail and mullion is achieved.

A far greater depth of groove at 20 is required for a satisfactory joint between rail and stile or between rail and mullion than is required for the reception of the margins of a panel 19. Therefore, if the groove 20 had straight side walls 22 instead of the stepped side wall as shown, the panel 19 would necessarily be received to the bottomor to the full depth of channel 20, but because of the stepped configuration of wall 22 and 23, this invention makes possible a long tongue joint with deep channel 20, but with a shoulder or step at 23 against which panel 19 may abut to limit the extent to which the panel is received in the channel. The result is a considerable economy in panel material requirements and at the same time a stepped tongue and groove joint which is superior to a tongue and groove joint which has unstepped walls.

lvIullions 13 need only be grooved with a straight wall shallow groove at 27 and 28, since it is not necessary to provide the deep narrow extension of the groove as at 29, because tongue 24 is to be received in such a groove 27 or 28.

As shown in Figure 3, panel 19 is only received into groove 20 as far as the step 23.

It will be apparent to those skilled in this art that because of the step at 23 there is a front and a back side to a stile or rail or mullion and it is possible for the skilled Workman selecting the materials for the milling operations to mill the step for the tongue 24 or to mill the step 23 for the groove 2%} so as to present the best quality of material on the front face and thus force the assembler of a door or door section 10-12 to so assemble the parts as to exhibit the best face at the front of the product. The joint can be assembled in only one way since the stepped tongue must face the stepped, grooved wall.

It will also be observed that rails 15 or 17 may be manufactured in quantity in the approximately finished lengths which, because of general standardization, are suited to particular sizes of doors. There is no need to mill accurately for a given dimension of a door since no dowels are needed and the tongue 24 is receivable anywhere along groove 20. Likewise, the panel is received anywhere along its wider portion of the groove, and the assembly operation may be rapid and accurate in accord with the precut sizes of panels.

Another feature of the invention is the provision of an unfilled channel lying beyond the margin of each .of the plywood panels 19. This unfilled portion of the channel 20 in the rails and the mullions provides what is known as aeration in the completed door sections. This is of importance where the door divides spaces having different temperatures. In this industry such variation in temperature is known to cause condensation with resulting warpage. It has been found that joiner work made up in accord with this invention is sutliciently aerated because of the unfilled channel portions at 20, that warpage is substantially reduced. V

I claim:

1. A panelled joiner construction including rails and styles adapted to be joined in a plane frame by an interengaging movement parallel with said plane and having tongue and groove connection between the rails and styles,

, the axis of the tongues being disposed in said plane and 3 a ma Wall's of the tongues and the walls of the grooves bein Complementarily stepped,the extremity of the tongue being substantially bottomedin said groove, the rails and styles are provided with intervening panels receivable in the grooves, and the panel is of a thickness receivable in the groove only to the depth of the step.

3. A joiner work eonstructon having rails continuously grooved with a deep narrow groove having one straight wall and one stepped wall whereby to provide a shallow portion of the'groove presenting greater width shaped to receive successive stiles, panels, mullions and additional panels in contiguity, the stiles and mullions being pro- 'vided with stepped tongues extending axially thereof and having walls eornplementarily receivable against the walls of the stepped grooves, and the panels being receivable in the wider portions of said grooves whereby to be in abutment against said steps.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

